


a star to steer her by

by damnromulans (beastofaburden)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-03 16:17:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 8,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beastofaburden/pseuds/damnromulans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of ficlets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you are a runner and i am my father's son

**Author's Note:**

> Song suggested by saltbender.tumblr.com

Leonard knows, as soon as the instructor calls Jim up for a demonstration,knows it from the date of the lecture and the murmur that goes through the room. He just fucking  _knows._

And Jim says nothing. Does nothing, really, not until the instructor lashes out at him, angered by a talent beyond his own, hiding a green eyed monster behind a grey uniform and a command emblem. Jim meets his every attack easily; moves in with a fluidity and a curve that can only be born of practice.

This is a first year hand-to-hand course, and all Leonard can think is  _where the fuck did he learn to fight like that?_

Of course, the crowd begins to stir. Kirk and the instructor show no signs of letting up, not even as knuckles start to bloody and Jim’s lip gets split. Leonard thinks about pulling rank - he’s not even the only doctor in the room - but there’s a moment when Jim’s eyes flash at him from beneath a ducked punch that make him want to back the hell away, a kind of contained rage that doesn’t so much explode as it does freeze you from the inside out.

So, he walks out. Pushes his way through the onlooking throng, doesn’t even care that he’ll probably have his grade deducted for missing the session. Because he’s seen Jim drunk and happy and impassioned and frustrated - but he’s never seen him  _cold._

He’s in the library later on, trying to catch up before winter break starts. When the armchair next to him is suddenly filled he doesn’t even look up from the PADD.

“Bones, I’m-“

“Don’t want to hear it.”

“I know that guy.”

All he can do is roll his eyes. “No shit, Jim, he’s been leading that class since the beginning of the semester. You know, that guy who stands at the front and tries not to swear when you call him out on his technique, call him an idiot?”

“He was friends with my parents.”

And  _that_ makes him look up. Jim’s leaning forward, elbows on knees, staring at him intently. He’s been cleaned up a little bit, but there’s a splint on his wrist and pink skin from the regenerator. 

“They served on the Kelvin together. He… I knew him. When I was really young. Before I learned how to fight. I don’t think he can believe that I’m here, you know?”

“So he tries to fucking  _kill_  you?”

“He was never going to be able to beat me. He knew that.”

“Why?”

Leonard doesn’t miss the clench of Jim’s hands, the flicker of his eyes, seeing if anyone else had slipped into the quiet corner of the library.

“He dropped me off.”

“Jim, what the hell-“

“He ran one of the Fleet’s colonial shuttle services. Here.”

He reaches over, grabs Leonard’s PADD. Leonard doesn’t protest whilst he pulls up a file.

“Read this. I’ll be back at the dorm when you’re done.”

He hesitates before it hands it back, only slightly, and only so that he can say “I’m okay, Bones. Remember that.”

By the time Leonard’s eyes reach the words Tarsus IV, everything is suddenly sickeningly clear, and Jim’s long gone.


	2. ghosts are going to fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suggested by ritournelled.tumblr.com

Jim’s got an officer’s suite, now. Brand new. So McCoy has no idea why he trails after him as he heads for his own shitty single, a remnant from another life that he can’t be bothered to shake off quite yet.

Most of their gear is on the Enterprise by now, anyway.

They’re soaked to the skin by the time they reach his room. It was raining out on the quad – could’ve been easily regulated, but the sun would’ve been too bright across the crowd today. No, if anything, it was a perfect reminder. How the silence and the cold feels. Of all the friends lost. Of all the light that was gone.

McCoy watches Jim as he heads for the kitchen – stops himself in front of the small breakfast table, a clench in his shoulders and a rag in his breath. He doesn’t want to say anything, knows that there’s nothing that could change a damn thing right now.

But he’s a doctor. He’s Jim’s _friend._ And he’ll handle this because he has to.

He pulls the hat away first, because he hates the damn things. Jim’s hair is in a thoroughly ridiculous state because of it and the rain – he says so, and it lifts the corner of Jim’s mouth. Good.

The dress jacket doesn’t come away so smoothly. It was stiff enough already, laden with emblems and flourishes, but he finds the zip at the base of Jim’s neck and does his best to strip it off efficiently, runs his hands down Jim’s arms as he eases the sleeves back.

His undershirt goes next, and McCoy chooses that moment to run and fetch a towel because he’s not sure he can be so close to all that pale skin, thrumming with blood and slicked from the wet, without a purpose to distract him.

By the time he returns, shrugging off his own jacket along the way, Jim’s down to his jockeys, perched on the edge of the table with his head in his hands.

“All those people.”

McCoy closes his eyes, moves forward with dragging feet.

“Saved a lot of people too, kid.”

He loops the towel around Jim’s shoulders, settles his hands on them, runs his thumbs across Jim’s collarbones.

“Saved me.”

Jim’s eyes flick up, wary.

“If you hadn’t brought me on board…”

“No.” McCoy is shocked by his own sudden ferocity. Because he’s not going to even think about that, if he’d left Jim in that hangar, if he’d been on the main medical deck with the first strike of the Narada, and all the fucking _ifs_ in the universe couldn’t change what _is_ but acceptance doesn’t come naturally to Jim Kirk.

“None of that, Jim.”

“I saw things, Bones.” And he sounds so goddamn lost that it breaks McCoy’s heart. “Spock showed me. What was meant to happen, what-”

“ _No_.”

McCoy brings himself close, shifts hands from shoulders into hair, rests his forehead against Jim’s and breathes with a rattle but absolutely doesn’t close his eyes, waits until Jim meets hazel with blue.

“See this, Jim. Now. See me.”

It takes a little while, and Jim’s hands ghosting up and down his sides, eyes tracing over his face like he’s trying to remember something, like a comparison, but eventually the reply comes in a whisper like a prayer.

“I do.”


	3. summer of my life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suggested by endquestionmark.tumblr.com

Jim makes sure that Bones at least halfway to very drunk before he ever mentions the Incident with the Corvette in the Daytime.

“Wait a minute kid, a Goddamned _Corvette?_ ”

Jim only shrugs from across the table, lazy smile stretching around the secret. The breeze of the Georgian nighttime rolls in through the kitchen windows.

“It could’ve been a scale model of the Enterprise, Bones. I still would have sent it over the edge of that cliff.”

“But a red, vintage Corvette. Damn it, Jim. Damn it to _hell_.”

“That was kind of the idea. And, wait, you’re actually more bothered about the car than my near death experience?”

“’S a scurrilous accusation, boy, and I won’t have it.”

“You are!” Jim slams his bottle down on the table – he downed it, somewhere along the way, cause hey, the plan never said Bones had to be drunk _alone_. “You totally are, oh my God, that fucking car does it _again._ ”

“I have an appreciation for life’s finer things, alright?” Bones takes a long, thoughtful sip. “My daddy used to have all these vintage car models. Heirlooms. I took the Corvette when…”

There’s a storm in Bones’ eyes when he trails off – and isn’t that a silence that Jim knows all too well, the _there’s no use in talking about it now._ He has to steer the conversation back on track, and he’s a bit muddled, but he still knows exactly what to say.

“I never got to have sex with anyone in it, though. That always bummed me out.”

The murky feeling disappears from Bones’ eyes when he rolls them. Bingo.

“You were thirteen and you were already thinkin’ ‘bout that shit?”

“Dude, isn’t that the _only_ shit thirteen year old boys think about? But no, not really. That came later. It’s hard to fuck someone on the backseat of a motorbike, you know.”  


“The no-win scenario, huh, Jimmy?”

It would’ve been so easy to miss the easy change in Bones’ voice, the heated tease hidden in a heightened drawl, but Jim’s been listening for it all night and there’s no way he’s missing out on it now.

“Not exactly.”

He drains his bottle, makes sure Bones is looking when he licks his lips and swallows. The Corvette story was an in, yeah, but this is what he was after. Undivided attention. Humid air on his skin. Hazel eyes dragging up and down his face, lingering on his lips, the flicker of a tongue that chases droplets of beer.

It’s not like they do this a lot - certainly never with so much build up, so much promise in the air. But there is no way in _hell_ Jim is heading back to San Francisco without fucking Bones in his own house, and especially when he looks like he’s halfway to pinning Jim down on the table already.

But the story’s not finished. He soldiers on.

“I used to love taking people for a little ride on the bike, actually.”

“I’ll bet.”

“The girls, of course, they fucking ate that shit up. God, they’d be so fucking _wet_ by the time we got home, you have no idea.”

“Jesus Christ, Jim-“

“But there were the guys, too. I remember this one guy, made me pull over two blocks from his place. Spent the whole ride rutting against my ass and he sucked me off behind some bastard’s recycler.”

That’s what breaks the camel’s back, apparently, Bones shoving his chair back and stalking around the table and wrenching Jim up into a burning, messy, urgent kiss that makes him fizzle down to his fucking toes.

“So you’re not mad at me, then?” He manages to gasp it out when Bones wrestles him back against the counter and is biting a trail down the column of his neck, right by the open window.

“Oh, I am.” His words fail when Jim cups him through his jeans, loves it when he makes Bones’ eyes roll for a reason that’s not all annoyance. “But I figure you wouldn’t tell me somethin’ like that without havin’ a good way to make up for it. Am I right? ”

Jim can only smile. He fists his hand in the scruff of Bones’ hair, pulls him back to face level and rasps “You’ve got no fucking idea.”

He kisses Bones again, and it feels like the jump between the car and the cliff.


	4. time for you to lean on me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suggested by vulcany.tumblr.com

There’s a moment, a flash of light. Blurred figures moving above and around him. A yell. But even that’s too much, too much to hold his eyes open against, and he’s tired in his bones, and everything fades to black as quickly as it appeared.

-

When he next wakes, there’s no sight. Just sound.

“Anything I give him stops working within the hour – and I’m running out of ways to keep his heart beating.“

“Perhaps composites of the stimulants-“

“Damn it, man, do you think I graduated yesterday?! Of course I’ve fucking tried combinations. I’ve tried invasive surgery, I’ve tried nanites, and none of it is working.”

Silence, for a moment.

“I am not questioning your expertise or your methods, Doctor. But unless frustration and exhaustion are integral parts of a cure for the captain, I am relieving you from duty for the next-“

“Oh, go to _hell_ , you pointy-eared son of a bitch, I’ll leave this medical bay when…”

-

Now, he can open his eyes just enough that two blurry spots of gold become visible. It’s not nearly enough.

“Should we say something?”

“I do not know.”

A light sigh, disbelieving.

“Damn, Kirk, you always were an attention seeking little shit, but this is taking it to the next level.”

“Sulu!”

“Chekov, he can’t hear us. And even if he could, he’d probably just laugh. It’s the Captain, man.”

And he tries _so hard_ to give Sulu the smile he was expecting, the smile that they needed, because things are starting to fall into place but his body isn’t getting any stronger. He can’t say a thing, can’t do a thing, and just the effort of trying to curl his mouth put him back into the deepest of sleeps.

-

“So if I can keep her going at this speed, and trust me, _I can,_ we’ll make berth at space dock within forty-eight hours. ‘Course, got no way o’ predicting what’ll happen after that, but I’m gonna go out on a limb and say a shit storm the likes o’ which Earth’s never seen.”

Scott. Mr. Scott. Scotty. God, Jim could fucking kiss him. He can tell that he’s sitting to the side of the bed – and that he’s probably been moved to a private room if the level of Scotty’s voice is anything to go by. Which is why it’s so strange when he suddenly drops it, places a hand on Jim’s knee through the bedclothes.

“Don’t let it all be for nought, Jim. Hang in there. I know you’re good at that.”

_ Don’t let all  _ what _be for nought_ , he wants to yell. _What the hell is going on!_

Of course, he passes out instead.

-

“McCoy, you need to get changed. We make dock in an hour.”

“Do you really think what I’ll be wearing makes any difference at _all?_ Honestly?”

“I know that it does.”

“Well tough shit. I have work to do here, I have to –“

“ _Leonard.”_

“What the hell else am I supposed to do?” The words are punctuated by a crack – a PADD being slammed on a desk, a noise he’s all too familiar with. “You want me to pretty myself up so that they can hang me over the castle walls? ‘Cause until they tell me otherwise, I’m this ship’s Chief Medical Officer, and I’m going to do my fucking _job_.”

“We’re _all_ doing our jobs. We all _did_ our jobs.” It’s a barb, and even directed away from him, Jim can feel the sting. He suddenly has a very clear picture of why they’ve been called back to Earth.

Hell hath no fury like Starfleet Command spurned.

“Christ, Nyota.” Bones – it has to be Bones, the blurry blue figure who leans over the end of the biobed. “I - _we_ couldn’t just leave him. Even if I can’t… and they’re not going to understand that, and either way he’s going to be mad as hell when he wakes up.”

“But not nearly as mad as you’re going to be, I’d wager.”

“You got that right.”

Red goes to stand beside blue at the foot of the bed.

“Spock thinks he might have an idea.”

“Does he, now…?”

Jim doesn’t hear the rest. 

-

The last time he wakes up, we can move. Hell, he can open his damn mouth, and the first dry rasp that escapes is “Okay, what the _fuck_ is going on?”

“Charming as always, Kirk. Hey, take it easy there.”

He blinks into focus, takes the cup of water that Pike holds out gratefully. He’s in a different room (again), but it’s filled with a sunlight that’s too bright to be artificial.

So. They made it to Earth.

“Admiral?” Jim can’t quite make himself sit up yet, but he can turn and look at the admiral at least. “The others. I don’t remember much, but I heard things.”

Pike hands him another glass of something – juice, this time. He sits back in his chair, gives Jim a look of appraisal that’s entirely unwelcome right now.

“Did you know that it’s not actually the responsibility of a ship’s captain to try and get himself killed every time he beams down to a planet?”

Jim coughs.

“Permission to speak freely?”

“Go ahead.”

“ _Fuck_ you, Sir.”

Pike just laughs, shakes his head. “As it turns out, though, where you are an abysmal failure at getting yourself out of tight spots, your command crew is not.”

“They’re the best in the fleet.”

“That they are.”

“So you _can’t_ let Command discharge them.” Pike quirks an eyebrow at that, but Jim plows on. He hasn’t been able to do or say anything for fucking eons, and now that he can, he’s sure as hell going to. “Put me in a uniform. Let me testify, or whatever.”

“And what would you say, even if you could?” There’s a hint of steel in the Admiral’s tone now. “You just said you don’t remember much. What could you possibly do?”  


“I have to try!” It’s as loud as Jim can make it, but still not strong enough to be a shout. He feels so _weak,_ and not just because of the illness. He stares Pike down and Pike stares right back.  _Command track assholes, always measuring your damn dicks_ , he thinks, and since when did his internal monologue sound so much like Bones?

Wait, no, that’s fucking actual Bones!

He rolls his head to look at the other side of the room, at the small crowd of grey dress uniforms assembled on the other side of the observation window, faces all focused, all determined, but undeniably happy.

_ They’re still here. _

“Like you said,” Pike claps a hand on his shoulder, stands. “Best in the fleet. Shall I send them in?”

His lips crack and his mouth is still pretty dry, but he can’t hold back the smile that peels across his face. He doesn’t even try.

“Yes sir.”


	5. you were a kindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suggested by leighway.tumblr.com

McCoy’s no stranger to a feral Jim Kirk. He’s spent enough hours reeling him in from cesspools of brawls and booze, has seen every low, felt the lash of his confused fists and spiteful tongue.

But the man inside the brig isn’t Jim Kirk. He stalks where he should stride – his smile curls like a scar, matches the one that divides his right cheek. No, this Jim Kirk isn’t feral. This Jim Kirk comes from a place where tame just doesn’t exist.

[[MORE]]

Thing is, all reports so far have indicated a highly volatile individual. Banging against the glass, yelling insults laced with secrets about he command crew when they brought him in. Hell, McCoy still has the two Ensigns that confronted him on the transporter deck sitting under regenerators, lucky to be alive.

So when he steps into the brig, and all Kirk does is straighten his back and say “I was wondering when you’d show up,” McCoy has to tamp down an irrational and immediate sense of fear – not the fear of danger, or harm so much. The fear of anything that’s just plain _wrong_.

Which is rich, because he doesn’t really have to be here. The brig has a full readout of Kirk’s vitals on the monitor. Theoretically, he could’ve assessed the man from his office in the med bay. But he just needed to… see it. Him. Ridiculous as it is, since he spends most of his working life encountering sights beyond comprehension, and that face is one of the most familiar he’s ever known.

“Have I got any ideas yet?”

McCoy’s jaw tightens. “ _Jim_ is still working on it. Last I heard, Scotty had a theory about-”

He has to stop himself, because _damn_ it, if this Kirk figures out how to jack the brig and is just biding his time for more information, MCoy’s sure as hell not going to be the one to hand it to him.

“Are you injured or ill?”

Kirk tilts his head slowly, and squints at McCoy.

“Vision’s blurry. I could probably see you properly if you came closer.”

McCoy looses a mirthless laugh and stays exactly where he is. “Yeah, try the other one, kid.”

“Kid?” Kirk takes a step up to the very edge of the cell, the barest of distances away from setting off the alarms. The blurry eyes were obviously a play, because he rakes his eyes over McCoy’s body so carefully, so precisely, that he has to fight against a shiver that tingles at the base of his spine.

“I’m gonna ask you again - are you in need of medical attention?”

“How old are you?”

“I’m asking the questions here.”

“So answer mine and I’ll answer yours.”

He huffs. “Thirty-two. And-”

“Impressive. Mine didn’t make it through last year.”

McCoy gapes, just a little. Because what the _hell_.

“Yours?”

And that’s either the very worst or very best thing he could’ve said to Kirk, because every inch of his detached malice dissolves into a snarl, the snarl of a wounded animal that’s still bleeding. His jaw is tight around the words when he replies.

“That’s what I said, McCoy.”

The next question plays on the tip of his tongue, and he knows he shouldn’t ask it, because even for a man who has dealt with death and disease and danger on a near daily basis it is _morbid_. Kirk seems to guess, though. Anger steeps his words.

“It wasn’t a shuttle, or an alien, or anything. He got sick.”  


“How?”

And that’s when he knows he’s played right into Kirk’s hand, because the snarl becomes a smile all too easily.

“That would be telling.”

“God damn it, Jim!” McCoy steps up to the edge of the prison, ignores the tinny computer advisory to step away, stares Kirk right the fuck down, watches as the corners of his eyes crinkle with mirth.

“You know, it’s going to kill him when it happens to you. Fucking bleeding hearts all over the place around here. How did he even make Captain?”  


“Because he’s a good man.”  


“Well that was his first mistake.”

“What made me sick, Kirk!?” He tries to tamp down his desperation, but Kirk, fucking _Kirk_ , he probably knew that McCoy would come see him, knew that…

Shit.

Right on cue, all the lights in the brig cut out. An alarm goes off in the distance, but McCoy it’s nothing compared to the sickening slide of the glass wall retracting. Metal on metal. Like sharpening an axe.

Kirk has him immediately, of course, and no amount of struggle can stop the momentum as he’s pulled and pushed against the far wall of the brig, pinned by the shoulders with another vice-tight hand on his wrist.

“I’ll fucking kill you.” McCoy growls, and Kirk’s laugh sounds all the more hollow without the brig between them. There’s no brightness to it, no hope. It’s terrifying.

“If only, McCoy,” he hisses, before taking his lips in what was probably meant to be a brief, hard kiss, but McCoy can fucking _feel_ his decision to linger, the slick heat.

He’s gone as suddenly as he was there, the lights begin to turn back on, there’s a pounding at the bulkhead and the brig is sliding shut again, positions reversed. Kirk is revealed to him once more, devil’s smile back in place and McCoy’s phaser in his hand.

There’s no way he’ll make it off the deck. With any luck, this was all just an exercise to get Jim’s attention, speed up the process to sending him back into the dark pit of a universe he came from.

With any luck.

Kirk twirls the phaser between his fingers, eyes the far exit of the brig thoughtfully.

“Xenopolycythemia. You should look into it,” he says, so casually, and it reminds McCoy of all those times Jim pulled out random medical fun facts so that he could answer questions in his seminars, meet him down in sickbay. The thought turns his stomach.

McCoy can’t do anything but nod numbly. “Will do.”

Kirk looks him up and down again, one last time, but it's different now. Like he's looking through him. At something that's not really there.

And then he’s gone, darting down the corridor, leaving McCoy alone in his cage.


	6. deeper devastation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> suggested by redcheekdays.tumblr.com

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follows on from "you were a kindness"

The next time Kirk catches McCoy alone, he's propped on a bed in sickbay with a bloodied lip and a black eye.

"What the hell happened to you?"

Kirk only smiles, darts his tongue out to lick at the blood seeping from his bottom lip. "You should see the other guy, McCoy. You probably will once Spock's done berating him. Which I still think is fucking weird, by the way -  you guys could really use a booth around here."

McCoy tightens his jaw and pulls the privacy screen shut with an angry jerk, doesn't need gossip or wandering eyes whilst he's taking care of... this. 

"If you hurt Jim, I swear to God..." It's an angry hiss, but he loads his hypospray with a mild painkiller all the same. 

"I brought it upon myself. Promise."

McCoy all but slams they hypo into the side of Kirk's neck with that little gem. He doesn't even flinch - no, the bastard laughs through it instead, his eyes crinkled with mirth in a way that's all too familiar.

He gets to work with the dermal regenerator and makes no further attempts at conversation. He doesn't need to hear any of Kirk's excuses, doesn't need to be subject to his warped sense of rationality. 

Of course, this does nothing to dissuade Kirk. McCoy can practically  _feel_ him thinking whilst he sets to work on the bruised eye. Calculating. 

"Do you even want to know what we were fighting about?"

McCoy almost comes back with  _Kid, I've been patching you up after fights for years now, I'll be_ _fine_ , stops himself with a bite to the inside of his lip and a mental slap. This isn't Jim. This _isn't._

_"_ Silent treatment? Really?"

"Do you want me to fix this or take your eye out?" McCoy growls. 

This seems to be what Kirk was waiting for. In a swift movement, he hooks his feet around the backs of McCoy's knees, widens his legs and brings their torsos flush together. McCoy tries to push back but Kirk's legs are vice-tight, the mirth in his blue eyes replaced with a fierceness that he knows well, that look that Jim gets when he's chasing after a single goal, that look Kirk gave him in the brig.

He can feel Kirk's heart hammering. His voice is a dark whisper, rough.

"I just asked him why he wasn't fucking you yet. If he wanted to know what you tasted like. How you look when you come."

McCoy doesn't want to give Kirk the rise he's looking for. He just looks him in the eye for a moment, lets the words ring, before restarting the regenerator.

He feels Kirk's laugh this time, through his chest, carefully ignores the hands that come to rest on his hips. He thinks about all the viral diseases he's got stored less than three paces away. He keeps his hands steady. He does  _not_ look Kirk in the eye, even when he keeps talking.

"Took me years before I got to you, McCoy. God, that night... I'd been to see Pike. And then I went to see you. But you didn't just slap me with a hypo and send me on my way. I was almost out the door, but you  _grabbed_ me. Hell, McCoy, you fucking kissed me, you sentimental bastard."

"Wasn't me."

"Wasn't it?" Kirk shifts his head so McCoy can't  _not_ stare him down now, lets the regen drop to the side. 

"You're a damn monster."

"So were you." Kirk inches forwards, nips McCoy's bottom lip. "You and I were going to fucking rip the galaxy apart, we made fucking  _stars_ burn out," and then Kirk takes his mouth fully, coaxes his lips apart and tangles their tongues. And McCoy... what can he do, but accept it? Because he's wanted this for so long, too long, and with everything Kirk's been saying he can lose himself in this, just for a moment. He can imagine.

When they part for breath, McCoy can taste Kirk's blood in his mouth.

"You loved him," McCoy breathes. All Kirk does is tighten his grip on McCoy's waist, hard enough to bruise, desperate enough to prove him right. 

And then, suddenly, the security screen is pulled away. There's only one person on the whole damn ship who interrupts McCoy whilst he's working.

Kirk smiles again, and it's nothing but malice and  _victory._

"Bones?"


	7. as we know it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> zombie apocalypse au.

All things considered, he doesn't regret picking the kid up.

First of all, he's a good shot, which is pretty much the only thing that matters anymore. They get cornered by a bunch of walkers when they're clearing out an abandoned gas station, a couple of hours after he picks the kid up. McCoy knows he probably wouldn't have made it out without the extra set of eyes. 

The only thing that bothers him, really, is the talking. Because McCoy was never that much of a people person, even before; now, Jim's the first person who's stayed within conversational distance, hell, stayed  _alive_ for long enough for McCoy to have to bother to get to know him.

But Jim's never thrown off by long silences in the car or snappy replies. If anything, it seems to spur him on - questions, always questions, _so what does a doctor do these days?_ and  _where do you wanna go next?_ and  _what  was your life like before?_

But that's all fine. McCoy's fine. Until he's not.

"So, are there any other McCoys running around out there?"

The car skids to a halt in the middle of the highway. There's a plume of dust in the rear view mirror, and McCoy's knuckles are white around the steering wheel. Jim says nothing, for once. Just waits.

McCoy fucking bites out his answer. It taste like bile passing his lips.

"Not anymore. Made sure of that."

Anyone still scrabbling across the wasteland knows exactly what that means. Jim's no exception - the sharp intake of breath is all McCoy needs to hear from him to know that he understands, but he's in no mood for the wide, blue eyes that drill into the side of his fucking skull.

"Don't need pity, kid. Happened years ago. And at least... I got to do it myself. End it before it got real bad for them."

There's a beat before, "Them?"

"My wife. And my daughter." His voice doesn't even crack over the words. Not anymore. Small victories, he supposes.

It's a story that he doesn't tell more often than he has to, and the reception is different every time. In some cases, it's gotten him a case full of warm beer and half a tank of gas. In others, he's been run out of fucking town. Those were in the early days, though. Back when people still realised what life was beyond pure desperation.

Jim slides down in his seat, but keeps his eyes trained firmly on McCoy.

"My mom said the same thing when she convinced me to do it."

It's only then that McCoy turns to meet Jim's gaze, sees the same struggle in bright blue irises that he greets in the mirror each day - _did I do the right thing,_ _was it worth it?_

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."


	8. you'd break your neck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> based off [this](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luryy1tvdl1qkxugso1_r1_500.jpg).

The first thing you learn is that you can't save them all.

There are always going to be days when you can't get there fast enough. When you're too low on supplies. When there's just nothing you can  _do._ It's what separates the doctors from the healers - who can feel a life slip through their fingers and move on, face another day?

McCoy remembers the name of every person who has died under his care.

Jim doesn't. Jim  _can't_.

He reports to sickbay too late, as per usual, when his face is grey and his eyes are dull. But, he keeps his back straight as he strides past the biobeds - shakes hands, congratulates, commiserates. It's only once he's behind the sealed door in McCoy's office that he slumps.

The whirr of a tricorder. The laboured breathing of someone with a few too many bruised ribs. Jim leans against the edge of the desk and refuses to look him in the eye. 

McCoy knows today was a bad day. He knows this one was different, that it wasn't just the run in and fix it job they usually thrust upon the Enterprise. No, this was a no win scenario - a place where the damage had already been done. A civil war in its final act. Cities burning, rivers run dry. Massacres. Genocide.

Jim leapt on it. Drew up the treaty himself, moderated every single damn day of the peace talks. And it was good. People listened, battles stopped. Hell, McCoy even started to believe that they'd get somewhere until someone set off a fucking bomb in the middle of the negotiations. 

Everything that happened after that, well...

The readout blips when Jim sighs, nerves lighting up as the pain rockets from his bones.

"What's the damage, Bones?"

He sets the tricorder down. Jim tries to keep it light (doesn't he fucking always) but instead he just sounds so, so tired. He keeps quiet until McCoy  lifts his chin with gentle fingers, trails the tips of his fingers over Jim's jaw, checking for fractures, bruises. 

"I thought I could do something this time."

McCoy sighs, shifts so that's he's cupping Jim's jaw, now, not hiding behind the veneer of clinical detachment. Jim still won't look at him.

"I remember all these Federation ships that flew in and came to get us. They tried to tell us Kodos would be held accountable by the fucking Federation, they tried to tell us everything would be okay, but we all knew better. And I was that guy, Bones. The idiot in the starship."

"Jim, it wasn't-"

" _Don't._ Don't, God, please don't try to tell me that this wasn't my fault."

There's an edge of desperation in it that slices right through McCoy, makes him pull Jim into his shoulder, because even if he still can't look him in the eye he can offer him this much.

He's careful of Jim's ribs, but he runs his hands over Jim's back, feels the bumps of his spine, knows that he's probably tracing over scars left long ago. He doesn't cry. He doesn't break. But McCoy can feel him shaking, can feel it when Jim turns his face into his neck. There's the tickle of breath against his skin and the brush of lips over his pulse. 

You can't save them all. But you can hold on. Move on. 

And they will.


	9. the bone that refused

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> based on [this](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbmbhgqFaS1qbloa9o1_500.jpg).

This is one of those mornings when the sun came up too quickly across the bay and the bartender was forgiving with the bottle. This is one of those mornings when split lips and bruised cheeks are treasured prizes, earned greedily and quickly with a sly smile and a one-two-punch. This is one of those mornings when he almost doesn't wake Bones up.

Almost.

It's grey and rainy and the bathroom light is too harsh on blurry eyes. There's a regen in the cupboard behind the mirror - he peels off his shirt, jacket, gets the few dotted across his collarbone before the door slides open and a resigned sigh hurts more than any fist.

"C'mere, kid."

So he's propped up on the sink whilst steady sure strong hands do their work. Bones is an anomaly amongst doctors these days, still presses skin and feels the edges of bruises, like he's checking they're real before he magics them away. And they're close - close enough that Jim's knees bracket his hips, close enough that Jim can see every hair of Bones' morning shadow, the flicker of a tongue as he works. The side of his mouth is almost bitten raw - there was surgery. That's why Bones didn't come last night. Surgery until late, surgery that required focus. Important work. Bones' work.

"How did it go?"

The well worn (well loved) crease in his brow deepens, jaw tightens.

"Don't wanna talk about it."

And maybe it's the gravel in his tone or the buzz in Jim's veins, but when Bones starts work on Jim's face he can't help but reach out as well, smooth the frown from those lips and trace the bitemarks with his thumb, brush through stubble and trace laugh/frown/Bones-lines and crows feet, because they're so damn  _close._  And Bones lets him, doesn't err from his own work, until the only trace of the night before are widened eyes and a slight smile.

He places the regen on the counter. He doesn't pull away. Just sighs again, parts his lips so slightly and so perfectly that Jim doesn't even try to stop from reaching out to them, running fingertips over soft flesh. 

"Why do you do this, Bones?" 

"Why do you?"

It's not an accusation, not even a real question. Jim has felt the brunt of blame and pity and disgust keenly. He knows what it is to be the weight on someone's back or the thorn in their side. But this isn't that - he can believe that, at least for now. Because the words feel like a kiss when Bones says them with Jim's fingers riding on his lips, with the red of dried blood under his nails. A reminder, that jagged edges and breaks don't scare him. That here, he is accepted. The healer, and the healing.

Sometimes Jim's not sure which is which.


	10. blood is drowning in alcohol

In Jim Kirk's humble opinion, hangovers are the  _worst._

He knows how to avoid them, sure, but there are some nights which fucking deserve a bleary awakening, clutching at the toilet bowl, prodding at bruises and cuts that weren't there a few hours ago. His first mornings out of juvy. The morning after the Tarsus tribunal finally ended, nearly four years after the fact. The mornings after Winona vanishes into space again for however long the Fleet sees fit. The morning after his birthday.

Of course, when they slap you in a pair of reds and say "Boldy Go" hangovers are somewhat frowned upon. And it's not like most of the people at the Academy are even old enough to drink anyway. So call it fate, or whatever, that he'd end up rooming with the only other person on campus who seems to understand the nature of a hangover (and also how to hypo you out of one).

Jim adds a few more mornings to his collection - the morning after Jocelyn commed Bones the deed for a house in Georgia, along with a wedding notice. The morning after the first flight sim, the bridge officer examination, and Jim's first run at the Kobyashi Maru. The morning after a strain of Capellan fever hits the campus and they lose entire wards overnight. The morning after the day Bones' daddy died.

But then there are the other mornings - when Bones prods him awake and drags him out for breakfast,  _we have class in an hour, kid, try not to throw this all up._ When he sits him on a table and runs the regen over the scratches, no judgement in his eyes, just the focus of a healer. When they're both still kind of drunk from the night before and Jim laughs his ass off when Bones can't even get his sweat pants on the right way. When rain's tapping at the window and Bones starts to stir, and Jim can wrap his arm around broad shoulders and press a kiss into the nape of Bones' neck and murmur  _it's Saturday, you don't have a shift, go back to sleep._

Jim would like to think that he deserves those mornings too.


	11. the damn shirt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> requested by leighway.tumblr.com and based off [this](http://media.tumblr.com/bb998e1f5292486fd0612ccc907fa5bc/tumblr_inline_ml0izu48NO1qz4rgp.jpg).

The thing about a Georgia summer is that the bourbon flows faster, the days last longer and the air is thick like honey. Atlanta’s on the horizon and shuttle jet streams sometimes streak the sky, but it’s easy to forget, for a moment, about anything that isn’t an old farm house its owner.

Well, it was. Until he put the fucking _shirt_ on.

Because it’s not like Bones is ashamed of Starfleet. God knows Jim’s been more than amused by the endless stream of relatives who seem all too happy to reintroduce themselves into Bones’ life now that he’s one of the saviours of the planet. But it seems like somewhere along the way Bones lost the ratty Ole Miss shirt and picked up the ratty old Academy shirt.

The fact that Jim’s pretty sure that shirt actually belongs to him, the shirt he used to wear on the track at the Academy, around their dorm, is completely beside the point. And it definitely didn’t contribute to his decision to set himself in Bones’ lap and kiss him as intently as he knows how. Because there’s Bones’ messy shore leave stubble, the deep tan covering his uncovered arms, and his sprawl in the armchair in the corner of the parlour, all impairing his judgement too. Jim’s a pretty good tactician. He knows when he’s helplessly outmatched. But he also doesn’t believe in the no win scenario.

And this? The way Bones’ lips part and take and give so easily, the feel of Bones’ hands around his hips, pulling him in tight and teasing at his shorts and so fucking _hot_ and _solid_ beneath him? Definitely not the no win scenario.

Jim’s shirt goes, and so does his balance, but Bones just chuckles into his mouth and sees him down onto the carpet, spreads himself over JIm easily, fits into the spaces around him so easily, like he always has. The room is stuffy and too small. The helpless noises being drawn from both of them soak into the walls. Jim pulls at Bones - wants to feel the entire length of his body, digs his nails into his shoulders and plunders his mouth, takes no small amount of pleasure in dragging his mouth over Bones’ jaw and sucking marks above the collar of the t-shirt, his collar bone, his pulse point, bites and sucks because he even _tastes_ good, like sex and sweat and the summer afternoon. He can feel the slow roll of Bones’ hips, too - jeans dragging over shorts, hard line of his cock, and even through fabric it’s just too good, makes him arch up for more.

When he has to stop for breath - little thing like that, so inconsequential, really - Bones’ face is focused, challenging. Teasing. Exactly as it should be, really, which is why Jim doesn’t hestitate roll them over, grins at the brief moment of pleasant surprise that creeps in the look when he does.

“Enjoying yourself?” He sounds roughened, a little bit wrecked, and utterly fucking perfect. Jim grins helplessly.

“A little.” He rests his forearm over Bones’ head, curls his hand into his hair whilst ducks in for another brief kiss. He can feel the curve of Bones’ slight smile against his own and wow, that is just _not fair._

He drags his other hand down, over the shirt, under the hem, traces fingertips over the sliver of skin revealed between the shirt and the jeans, gets to work on buttons. Bones doesn’t tense up as he gets to work, doesn’t do anything but keep his gaze steady and his breaths deep, just _watches_ whilst Jim cards his fingers through hair and fumbles with the fly because it’s suddenly dawning on him exactly what he’s doing.

And Bones, of fucking course, sees that. Picks up own hands, hands that don’t shake, _ever_ , from where they were lying by his side, strokes soothingly up and down Jim’s sides. His eyes only fall shut once Jim forces his pants down around his thighs, when he wraps a hand around Bones’ cock. His hands only leave Jim’s chest to help him out of his shorts and pull him down tight.

All of Bones’ clothes against Jim’s skin is strange. There’s a small part of him that wants to wrench the shirt off, wants to press against him and never let go, but then there’s the part where he gets to watch Bones’ fall apart underneath him, wrapped up in Jim, fucking _owned_ by him, knowing that he’s owned right back and couldn’t be happier about it. That he’ll probably take that shirt into space in a week, that he’ll wear it around his quarters, around _Jim’s_ quarters, that Jim will have plenty of opportunity to peel it off him again and again and again and he’ll be able to think of this, of Bones’ breath starting to come harsh and fast, of the rough rut of hips and Bones’ hand working around him, _them_ , of the way Jim drops his forehead to rest against Bones’ because his forearm gives out and Bones is looking right at him again and he just says “Come, Jim, for me, right now.”

When he comes back to himself, the first thing he sees is the t-shirt, thrown to the side and spattered with come. 

“You better wash that.” It’s muffled, pressed as he is against Bones’ chest, but that’s okay, because Bones is stroking a line up Jim’s spine and pressing a kiss into the crown of his head and he can feel his voice through his chest when he speaks.

“Could get you a new one if you wanted.”

Jim just smiles, nips at the skin above Bones’ heart.

“No way.”


	12. nowhere else to go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> requested by radiophile.tumblr.com, an au where mccoy and jim never made it to the shuttle.

He doesn't even know the kid. 

He has no idea where he comes from, where he's been. Only knows that he pulled him out from under a pile of Cadets in that damn dive bar, and that he started hitting on him before he'd even finished fixing his nose. It hadn't even stopped bleeding before he grabbed McCoy by the scruff and wrenched him in for a kiss that tasted like Jack and blood and dirt and too fucking good to push away.

He doesn't even know the kid, he thinks, as he pushes in, slow, just on the right side of pain, judging by the way the kid fucking yowls and says "Oh, Jesus, _yes._ " Shunts his hips back onto McCoy like he can't be full enough, like it'll never be fast enough, like it'll never be enough  _full fucking stop._ McCoy gives him a firm smack, doesn't want to rush this, which of course only makes the kid buck and whine all the harder. Fucking figures.

The kid's room is sparse and messy, but the bed was made and the lube was out when they stumbled in. He wasn't ever planning on coming home alone - probably never even thought it was a possibility. McCoy wants to ask what he expected when he headed out earlier this evening, whether he thought he'd be the one bent over and gagging for it by the end of the night, but there's something about the bunch of his shoulders and the way he clutches at the sheets with white knuckles that tells him everything he needs to know.

In and out and in and out and  _God,_ McCoy's missed this, even when he had Joce, even when he had everything else he could've ever wanted. Now he doesn't even have a fucking home, and can't bring himself to get on the shuttle that that damn Captain told him would take him  _to another life,_ to Starfleet, all gilded and useless in their little fortress in San Francisco. 

What use is the whole damn galaxy when he barely feels like he belongs on Earth?

He thrusts, harder, pointed. Reaches grabs at skin hard enough to bruise, wrenches the kid up so that he can't do anything but fucking  _take it_ whilst McCoy pounds out his frustration and shame and need. He's making noises, helpless little grunts, but the kid is right there with him, just keeps saying "come on, harder, fuck me, you said you were gonna fuck me so  _fuck me_ " and he did, didn't he, when he was following him out the bar, asking him if he was really a sawbones or if he just liked playing doctor, said he was up for both if McCoy was. And he was, and he is, and it  _has_ to be hurting now but he can see him stripping his cock desperately as McCoy goes, thinks that maybe he's not the only one seeking absolution in this.

McCoy's close, blood racing with it, but he's present enough to wrap an arm around his collarbone and bite at his ear and tell him to "Do it, kid." He does, striping his hand and their thighs with come, and the clench and the desperate, winded moan are all that McCoy needs to fall over the edge alongside him.

They separate, McCoy rolling to the side, both staring at the ceiling and panting deeply. There's a strange sense of clarity in the moment, and McCoy's not sure if that's a good thing.

"You can stay if you want." The kid sounds hazy, on the edge of sleep. He doesn't even know the kid, McCoy thinks again, but he's got nowhere else to go.

"Sure."

He catches a nod out of the corner of his eye, watches as he pulls up the blankets and rolls to face away from him, towards the window.

"I'm Jim Kirk, by the way."

There's no reason why he should reply. Beyond breakfast, he has no clue what this guy can offer him, why he should give any credence to the events of tonight. But he thinks about the empty apartment, about the blur of cadet reds, about shuttles flying away into the morning sun. And he answers.

"McCoy. Leonard McCoy."


End file.
